With the questions (understandably) a little bit more filled with frustration than usual, it seems more than a few of you are searching for answers to last week’s loss still. Let’s answer a few mailbag questions before the game.

And just like that, Notre Dame’s season is nearly over. While losing three of four games has dampened the spirits of fans and detoured the team’s postseason hopes, the Irish will play their final game at home on Saturday, a senior sendoff in Notre Dame Stadium for a large group with a still-to-be-determined future.

Few memories are shorter collectively than football fans. Every mistake is magnified in the prism of “now,” with the devastation of a difficult to understand loss like last weekend’s to Northwestern consistently taking dead aim at the foundation of a football program, regardless of its stability.

Notre Dame graduate assistant Kyle McCarthy took to Twitter to share the good news that he’s been given a cancer-free diagnosis. The former Irish captain had been battling an undisclosed type of cancer since earlier this year, staying with the team throughout surgery and multiple treatments.

Brian Kelly met with the media this afternoon, a few days into preparation for Louisville. While there were certainly questions about how the Irish were going to challenge a Cardinals team with some really exceptional personnel on both sides of the ball, the focus was mostly on the guys inside Notre Dame’s locker room.

Apologies to Van Morrison’s mother. There didn’t have to be days like this.

Notre Dame’s overtime 43-40 loss to Northwestern Saturday is a game that defies explanation. Turnovers. Mistakes. Coaching blunders. They all add up to the worst Saturday Brian Kelly has ever had at Notre Dame Stadium, and perhaps one of the worst defeats in his 20-plus year coaching career.

After a long time away from South Bend, the Irish finally return home to Notre Dame Stadium. Met by Northwestern, the Irish have a chance to get back to their winning ways, against a Wildcat team that’s 3-6 and struggling in a less-than-stellar Big Ten.

It’s game day in snowy South Bend. For those of you not enjoying things from the “cozy” confines of Notre Dame Stadium, you can catch all the action, as usual, on NBC, with a pregame show starting at 3:00 p.m. ET and kickoff coming at 3:30.

Nothing like a difficult loss to rankle the soul of an Irish fan. And while I smartly steered clear of the comments, it doesn’t look like too many of you did. For a football fan, you can dwell on struggles and turnovers and other mistakes for weeks and weeks. For a football team? It’s on to the next one.

It’s a winter wonderland in South Bend. As an early snow covers the Midwest before the middle of November, it’s a wonderful reminder that FieldTurf has been installed in Notre Dame Stadium, allowing Saturday afternoon’s game to look more like football than broomball, as it has in the past.

Heading into the season, questions surrounded Notre Dame’s defense. With key starters gone at every position, the strength of Brian Kelly’s previous four teams would need to replace a cast of characters that played a lot of really good football.

Coming off a difficult and frustrating loss to Arizona State, Notre Dame welcomes Northwestern to town, a second opportunity at an eighth victory. For as difficult as last Saturday was for Irish fans, it’s been wash, rinse and repeat for those following the Wildcats this year. Lake the Posts gets us prepared for this weekend, getting us up to speed on the misery that’s overtaken Evanston lately.

Notre Dame’s playoff hopes are dead. But the Irish are not. Head coach Brian Kelly met with the media on Tuesday for his weekly press conference, reminding everybody that there are still three very important games on the schedule.

Give Brian Kelly credit. He found an appropriate nickname for the egg the Irish laid Saturday afternoon, dubbing it, “The Debacle in the Desert” during his Sunday post mortem teleconference. That game shook the core of the Irish, with Everett Golson’s five-turnover afternoon ending Notre Dame’s playoff chances in a first half from hell.

While countless variables exist on every single snap in football, there are still a few universal truths that govern the game. Notre Dame found that out the hard way, as five turnovers and an inability to protect the quarterback flushed the Irish’s College Football Playoff chances down the toilet.

With an early flight to Phoenix and a kickoff at a little after 1 p.m. local time, let’s hammer out a Friday evening mailbag. Some interesting questions that I hope delivered some satisfactory answers.